Response Poems 

What Remains

 by Irene Hossack

You and I,

together over a period of time,

created something beautiful,

beyond what could be in our control,

whether we remained in love. We received

the product of what was once us,

and found two miracles in our midst,

through bathtime, ear ache, school concerts,

nerves the night before exams. Our shared

phrases with them, kissing goodbye:

be the best that you can be,

keep a good heart, don’t let words hurt,

you are beautiful. This cannot be erased,

as we have been, our children remain

living testaments of the dreams we made together

enduring, despite our failure to see it through.

Weighing The Dinosaur Egg

by Bob Cooper

At the Museum we saw an egg

incubating for ever.

“Imagine the size of a dinosaur.”

You stared through the glass,

“It’s a stone.”

We moved on: cheeseburgers,

fizzy drinks, ice-cream.

You must now be seventeen;

your mother re-married,

another child aged eight.

I brood over the fossil,

now knowing its weight